16 Month into it I still feel a newbie to MINIs...

Has anyone run spacers for a very long time since they bought the car new and felt concerned about changing the car driving dynamics too much or run into wear issues to tires, suspension, or drive train components?

Here is why I ask: My wife drives the MINI most of the time (though I certainly jump on it any time I can). Due to this I've avoided any kind of suspension tuning or excessively low profile tires that could improve the look to something a little sportier. But now I'm thinking that adding spacers might be what I could do to decrease the wheel gap, improve the look, without adding any adverse effect to my wife's driving safely and possible damage she could cause as a result of me modifying the car.

I'm not a newbie to doing work on my other car as I did much of the suspension work and much more myself. But I'm the only one using it so I know exactly what I do when I drive it
But the MINI is new to us and I don't want to put her at risk or damage her car simply just for my own enjoyment. It's also likely I would use the spacer solely in the summer where I have a nice set of summer tires and wheels I got for the MINI.

Any additional draw backs on spacers with a MINI?
It might affect turning radius possibly (?)
How about at high speed?

Any concerns, warnings, or advice you might have on the subject would be much appreciated...

Greg

 

Spacers won't reduce wheel gap (it may just appear that way).

They will, by design increase wheel bearing stress slightly, but anything less than 15mm won't be an issue.

You'll need longer wheel bolts. Don't buy cheap ones.

Driving dynamics are better imho, the wider wheel track only adds to the handling.

I say do it, get good stuff. Worst case you resell them for a slight loss. Given they are just a tire rotation away from a swap it's not a hardship to install.

 

Technically it does by reducing the space between the fender edge and the tire.
But I know what you mean. It is not the same as lowering the car from a side view perspective

And I always go for the good stuff
What is worth doing is worth doing well...

 

If you use wheel spacers you are pushing the wheel farther outward than the stock wheel position giving you are more narrow gap between the outer tire tread edge/shoulder and the inner upper wheel well edge.

If you use stock suspension then you can easily use 10mm to 15mm wheel spacers which widens the track of the wheels and can look a little more flush depending on how much negative camber you run.

But if the wheel spacer is 10mm then you need longer wheel bolts, the stock bolts are too short for anything but thin 3mm spacers which would not help in your case.

Handling will not be improved for street use, if anything as you push the wheels outward you may have slightly more effort needed to turn the steering wheel.

Wheel bearing wear can be accelerated but that is often mentioned and not really a practical problem for street use, on the track it may be more stressful.

Wheel spacers come in two forms, one that is hub centric with a small lip that fits onto the wheel hub and allows the wheel to firmly center itself, not requiring the wheel bolts to center the wheel. The other is a plain spacer that merely fits onto the hub and can move around, you need to match up the wheel with the holes on the hub to put the bolts on.

Turning radius is not really affected unless you go with a super wide spacer but even that is a small change. High speed driving is not affected.

The most common uses for wheel spacers are:
For additional clearance from rubbing on the inner suspension parts.
For a flush look of the tire to the sides of the wheel arches

If you don't need to run spacers then don't add them.

 

I actually know a lot of this but I still appreciate the recap. Someone might find this useful too since you captured a lot of info

I'm looking more for actual experience from people who have run them on MINIs for a long time.
I do appreciate the feed back though in that it doesn't seem to be affecting the MINI driving dynamics too much in normal driving condition. MINIs are a bit lighter than most cars so I get worried little changes can have more significant impact on safety.
I also do appreciate the feedback on not having too much added stress to MINI drivetrain in normal driving condition. I get the feel people tend to be more optimistic with spacer then reality. But I don't have long term experience with MINIs to know what thickness of spacer start to add more noticeable stress. My initial guess is that 5mm probably does nothing to wear. 10mm start too shorten the longterm life. And 15mm might actually significantly but occasionally reduce wheel bearing life. But I don't really have experience to say this with confidence.

I might get some and run them for a shorter period of time in the summer season when I tend to drive the car more. I like to stay within 10-12mm not to overly add stress to the wheel bearings and I always go for hub centric. It just puts my mind more at ease so likely I'd need 10-12mm to clear the hub rim.

Thanks for all the feedback though, and I appreciate your last sentence: "If you don't need to run spacers then don't add them"... One is simply left to define "need" . . . maybe I'll just run them for short periods of time.
I do like that the MINI has bolts rather than studs. It makes retroactive installation a lot more straight forward. On my other car I had to change the studs mounted to the wheel hub which requires special nut if I want to run wheels without spacer. But I don't really...

 

When you add spacers what you're really changing is your scrub radius. Plenty of info on google if you care to read into that.

This is what I went with for my spacers. 8mm is a bit of an uncommon size but it was the cheapest set I could find and it fits your desire to widen conservatively. They fit perfect and I made sure to spray a bunch of honey goo on both sides of them prior to install so I've had no issues with rust whatsoever.


http://www.ebay.com/itm/Four-WHEEL-HUBCENTRIC-SPACERS-4X100MM-8MM-THICK-56-1MM-CB-/321354528930?pt=Motors_Car_Truck_Parts_Accessories&hash=item4ad238f8a2

 

I have used 15mm spacers on my 2006 R53 for about 70,000 miles with no issues.
I have 18x7 wheels with 215/40-18 tires.